


Sick Of Losing Soulmates

by Ellienerd14



Series: Holding Hands, Running The Long Way Round [2]
Category: Class (TV 2016), Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Charlie is a tattoo artist, Clara’s death, Episode: s09e10 Face the Raven, F/F, M/M, Nonbinary Me, Open Ending, Other, im heartbroken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 09:43:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14017512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellienerd14/pseuds/Ellienerd14
Summary: Clara Oswald dies on trap street. Me doesn’t get a chance to say goodbye the first time. But the second time, when they reach Gallifrey, they mourn her loss.Because Me is sick of losing soulmates. Sick of them blowing away like smoke. Sick of being alone.





	Sick Of Losing Soulmates

_**Cause I'm sick of losing soulmates** _  
_**So where do we begin?** _

The day Clara Oswald dies isn’t the worst for Me. It’s a mistake - the woman was more unpredictable than expected - and sad and brave and beautiful. But they’re had darker days. Me can survive losing Clara Oswald. It was the Doctor who had a broken heart. 

They can the first time, at least.

The second time - the final time - they witness Clara Oswald’s death is heartbreaking. It’s still sad and brave and beautiful but that’s intensified after hundred of years of travel.

Me watches as the woman who lived without a pulse - her impossible girl - pulled on her familiar grey shirt and let her hair fall back to cover a tattoo on her neck that was entirely their fault.

The scene behind Clara is frozen a second before she will die. Me can see themself in the image, with bright eyes glued to the empty spot where Clara would fall. So young, even if they were the oldest person on the whole street. Knowing more than anyone yet unable to predict this. 

“Look at me,” Clara says, pulling on their hand. “I have been preparing myself for this moment since before the long way round began.”

“I’ll be alone.”

“I will have to be brave. But you, you are going to have to be braver,” Clara whispers, reaching to touch their face in a mirror image to her goodbye to the Doctor.

Always so strong for those who needed it - how would Me cope without her?

“One more trip,” they plea half-heartedly. 

Clara smiles and it rips Me’s heart into paper pieces. “The trick to being brave is remembering the person watching. Me, you can be brave for me - you’ll have to be.”

“I always knew you’d blow away like smoke,” Me replies bitterly.

Clara leans forward and kisses them. Me holds onto that feeling, to the moment until she pulls away. Me stares up at her, forgetting how ancient and isolated they once were - now all Me felt was young and scared and dependant on a woman about to leave. 

“Run,” she says, “run my clever love and remember me.”

Clara wipes her eyes and then wipes Me’s cheeks. She’s still brave and Me closes their eyes because watching Clara Oswald blow away like smoke is too hard. And it’s always been one memory they’ve never forgotten.

That’s the only things Me fears more than being alone and missing Clara. Their memory is limited, a finite space. Clara’s last words were to remember her but Me fears they won’t be able to.

That night, they can’t sleep. Me fills up another book with details of their goodbye and writes Clara’s name on the front followed by ‘remember her’.

 

* * *

 

 **_We will grow old as friends,_ ** **  
**_**I've promised that before  
So what's one more?** _

Me keeps running with their TARDIS which is still stuck looking like a diner even if the sign has said **CLOSED** since Clara died a century ago.

It’s always lonely when you’re immortal but Me had given up on trying to catch those who left. Clara was the first person where they’d tried to catch the smoke. And it has slipped between the cracks of their fingers just as it always had.

It’s impossible to let go of her. And Me isn’t willing to let Clara fade from their memory yet.

But, when Me wakes up and finds themself staring at a portrait of Clara, surprised her eyes were brown, they realise their grasp on the smoke is getting looser.

So, they find a new way to remember her.

* * *

 

_**Yeah, I'm sick of losing soulmates  
Won't be alone again** _

Earth is full of tattoo shops - the whole galaxy was - but Me finds themself in London again. It’s tucked away on a small street in Shoreditch, not far from where Clara once lived and worked and where she eventually died.

Me picks it because of the name - _Souls_. They’re rarely sedimental enough to admit it but it felt, for a beautiful moment, like Clara was their soulmate.

The shop is tiny and colourful. The young man who runs it couldn’t have been much older than twenty-one but Me knew that apparent ages were deceiving. He seemed older somehow. And he looked sad, in a way that reminded them of the Doctor.

“Charlie,” he introduced brightly. “How can I help you?”

“How did you pick the name?” Me asks, even if it’s not intentional.

He looked down. “In memory of those whose souls are lost.”

“Fitting,” Me agrees.

Charlie smiles. “Are you interested in getting a tattoo today? It’s pretty empty, so I can fit you in now.”

“I’d like that,” they agree. “I’m Me, they/them.”

“So Me, did you have anything in mind? I have some art you can look through.”

He passed over a heavy book full of hand drawn designs. Me flipped through it thoughtfully looking at each sketch. Charlie was a good artist and seemed to have done his own tattoo art based off the winding designs on his arm. There was a blue police box too, among over carefully traced art of violins and flower petals and stars; a life story was mapped out on his skin - most likely one that didn’t start on Earth.

“This one,” Me requests, choosing a design featuring bright flowers. “But, one more thing added - a name.”

“So, that’s why you’re so sad,” Charlie says, redrawing the design on a piece of tracing paper, leaving space in the middle this time. “Broken heart.”

“You got a broken heart from me requesting a name?”

“You came here alone so it’s a not a partner. Partners come for support, if you were getting their name tattooed on you,” Charlie explains. He holds up his own wrist to show a name drawn in the middle of a constellation. “He held my hand the whole time.”

“Sounds like a gentleman.”

“Yeah,” Charlie replies, smiling as he picks up his pencil again. “So, who’s name is it?”

“Clara. She was my everything. And now I am alone and trying to cling to her memory.”

Charlie adds her name to the middle.

“What do you think?”

Me dropped their leather jacket to the ground and held out their wrist. “Perfect.”

 

* * *

 

 ** _Brave face talk so lightly,_  
** _**Hide the truth  
(hide the truth)** _

The tattoo is a good idea because everytime Me feels like something is slipping, they look down and see her name surrounded by carefully inked forget-me-nots. And then they do what Clara said. Me runs to the library and opens a book older than some galaxies. And then they remember her.

Me knew they would never end, never die, never blow away like smoke. But sometimes, they read of Clara Oswald’s life and wish she wasn’t the one to face the raven.

Then they look down and at her name and chose to be brave over and over and over again.

Clara Oswald has already died twice. But if Me would live forever, so would she.

 

* * *

 

 ** _Cause I'm sick of losing soulmates_  
** __**So where do we begin?  
** I can finally see, you're as fucked up as me  
So how do we win?  
Yeah, I'm sick of losing soulmates  
Won't be alone again  
I can finally see, you're as fucked up as me  
So how do we win?

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Face The Raven today and I just have so many emotions about these too. I still ship them and I think the fact Me inevitably watches Clara die twice is so sad. 
> 
> (Our tattoo artist is Charlie Smith, a sweet bi alien dork with morals greyer than Peter Capaldi's hair from the spin off ‘Class’.) 
> 
> Feedback appreciated.  
> Tumblr - bazwillendinflames


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